It must be a huge relief for Sony Online Entertainment to hit the 10-year mark while other MMOs like HellGate: London, Fury and Tabula Rasa couldn't even stay open for three years. So SOE definitely has something to celebrate with a decade of online gaming now set behind them.
This moment must be especially confiding in that newer MMOs are having a tougher time staying open. Warhammer Online and
Age of Conan are good examples of the next potentially destined-for-dirt MMOs, given that a lot of their servers have been given the axe.
EverQuest originally launched on March 16, 1999. SOE tells us that three years earlier in March 1996, the game was given the green light to begin development, and in 1998 it entered open beta with 60K applicants.
In an EverQuest factoid rundown, SOE attempts to explain the scope of EverQuest:
There are over 12 million player-created characters in the game.
Over 1 million NPCs populate EverQuest.
There are 350 square miles of environments explorable in the game.
Over 10 quadrillion bytes of EverQuest data have left the SOE network in the past ten years.
The heaviest hours of operation for EverQuest are from 3 p.m. PST to 11 p.m. PST, with the biggest days being Thursday and Sunday
.
There are about 2,500 pairs of pants in-game.
As a company, SOE has served over 12 million player accounts across all of its titles, which includes all Station IDs.
To make matters even better yet, SOE has announced that they'll be hosting an Everquest 10th anniversary event at Bally's Hotel in Las Vegas, between June 25th and June 28th. Activities planned for the event include the following:
Special announcements and sneak peaks of upcoming SOE titles at the Third Annual Community Address from SOE President John Smedley
Autograph signings with members of the original EQ development team and other key contributors
Lots of in-game tournaments; and live, game-themed competitions and quests
Developer forums and roundtables
Cool giveaways and other fun items!
SOE has also launched a website for the occasion at EQ10th.com.
